Erwin Wiens Selected as 2023 Grape King

Nov 17, 2023

Grape Growers of Ontario and Farm Credit Canada are pleased to announce that Niagara-on-the-Lake grape grower Erwin Wiens has been chosen by his peers as the 2023 Grape King (pictured – credit Denis Cahill).“We are delighted that Erwin Wiens has been selected as 2023

Grape King. Erwin will be a wonderful ambassador for the Ontario grape and wine industry,” says Grape Growers of Ontario Chair, Matthias Oppenlaender. “The annual crowning of the Grape Kingis a time honoured tradition that began in 1956 to recognizeexemplary vineyard management and knowledge of the industry,” says Debbie Zimmerman, CEO of the Grape Growers of Ontario.“FCC is pleased to support the tradition of naming an Ontario

Grape King and with it, celebrating the best in the business like this year’s recipient, Erwin Wiens. Erwin exemplifies all the best qualities of Ontario grape growers. He contributes to the innovation, product quality, shared knowledge and enhanced access to consumers that ensures the long-term success of this valuable agricultural sector.” said George Klosler, Senior District Director, Farm Credit Canada. “Erwin is very deserving of being named Ontario’s Grape King and we wish him continued success.”

The Grape King carries the distinction of being nominated by their peers and selected by our industry judges who visit each of the nominated vineyards. The Grape King serves as a representative for Ontario’s grape and wine industry at events across the country, starting with the Invitational Grape Stomp on September 17th in Montebello Park and in the annual Grande Parade on September 23rd at the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival.

Erwin was raised in a fruit farming family. He attended Carleton University for Criminal Law where he met his wife, Dorothy. They raised four accomplished daughters, Brianna, MacKenzie, Taylor and Jessica and have a son-in-law Daniel. Today, Erwin and Dorothy tend to a thriving 120-acre vineyard, cultivating a range of grapes including Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris and Merlot.

Erwin is a valuable member of the Board of Directors of the Grape Growers of Ontario since 2015, where he now presides as the Chair of their Sustainability Committee. Furthermore, Erwin is Chair of the Niagara Regional Irrigation Committee and a member of both the Niagaraon-the-Lake Irrigation Committee and the Agricultural Committee.

Following a distinguished 31-year career in law enforcement, Erwin retired from the Hamilton Police Service. Since 2018, Erwin has been an integral member of the Niagaraon-the-Lake
Town Council, where he currently holds the esteemed position of Deputy Lord Mayor. In this role, Erwin also lends his expertise as a Board member on the Niagara Parks Commission and the Niagara District Airport Commission

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids